OVERWORK FOR CHILDREN 191 



swineherd armed with a whip." Children were scattered, 

 pigs were protected, and the contest came to an end. 



No wonder those children tried to run away. " To pre- 

 vent this, all who were suspected of such a tendency had 

 irons riveted on their ankles with long links reaching up to 

 the hips. In these chains they were compelled to work and 

 sleep, young women and girls as well as boys." 1 Although 

 this cruelty was carried on under cover, as it were, still facts 

 leaked out by degrees. People began to get excited and to 

 demand that something be done to save the children. One 

 by one, earnest men and women took the matter up. They 

 said children must not " be used up as the cheapest raw 

 material in the market." 



In 1 799 and 1 800, as if to help the movement along, there 

 came a sweeping epidemic. It traveled from factory to fac- 

 tory in Manchester and throughout the regions about the 

 city. Everywhere it was the children who suffered most and 

 died in largest numbers. Doctors looked for causes and said 

 that " overwork, scant and poor food, wretched clothing, 

 bad ventilation, and overcrowding, especially among the 

 children," explained it all. 



The result of the agitation was that e> en the British gov- 

 ernment bestirred itself. It passed a law that these children 

 should not work over twelve hours a day, and that they should 

 be clothed and sent to school and also have religious teaching. 



After this, conditions were somewhat better ; nevertheless, 

 from then until now, in every country, certain groups of chil- 

 dren have been overworked, underfed, and wretchedly housed. 

 Take for example what is happening even in America, and 

 even in the twentieth century. 



1 For full description see " The Bitter Cry of the Children," by 

 John Spargo. 



